Excerpt from The American Mind and American Idealism Selves, and this is the form which makes the universe like to God. Form, then, in Dante's universe, as in writing, is order. And since no right sense of the significance of order can be developed by mere extracts, the whole com position ofa writer should be given the student for consideration. Only thus can he appreciate that the workman hath in his heart a pur pose. Moreover, the student who masters an essay in all its logical setting forth of an idea toughens his mind to grapple with hard books and to get pleasure from conquering them whether he enjoys them or not. And by means Of this grappling his intelligence can be got actively at work striking out ideas and setting them in order. With the twofold purpose, therefore, Of developing in the student through good reading both a sense Of form and also. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.